The mainstream media declared the Benghazi story insignificant long ago. To the extent it is covered, the focus is usually on the horrific and unnecessary deaths of four Americans. The Obama administration dismisses it as a lot of fuss about a few silly talking points.

But everybody is missing the big-picture story of the Benghazi affair and its cover-up. Itís about the White House using the intelligence community for its own political purposes, and lying to the American public in order to win an election. Itís about abuse of power, and that is a big deal.

Thatís why the administration cannot be allowed to investigate itself. Thatís why it is time for Congress to appoint a special committee to get to the bottom of the story.

Benghazi is no longer just a political issue. Itís not just a partisan witch hunt. It goes to the heart of what our system of government is all about.

If it turns out that Benghazi and the cover-up were just a series of junior level mistakes, that is the end of it. But if it turns out the administration was using the military and intelligence communities for political purposes prior to the attack, during the attack and in a subsequent cover-up, it must be held accountable. Because once the precedent is set, future administrations will feel no reluctance to do the same.

America has the most powerful military and intelligence services in the world, probably in the history of the world. They have an infrastructure that endures separately and beyond any administration or politician.

At the same time, the military-intelligence complex takes its orders from the American people, through their elected/appointed representatives in the White House and Cabinet.

Itís a sacred trust at the heart of our Constitution, as set out in civilian control of the military. But it comes at a price Ė that our civilian leaders do not abuse that power and bend the military and intelligence communities to do their political dirty work.

The president doesnít order the military to seize political opponents. He doesnít order his intelligence community to lie about national security for political purposes. He uses the military or intelligence communities to protect the United States and our citizens, not to help him win elections.

Thatís the heart of the Benghazi scandal and cover-up. The White House twisted intelligence to suit its political needs.

I was part of the Nixon administration during Watergate. I was a junior staffer on the National Security Council and helped keep the classified files. At the heart of the Watergate investigation was the presidentís abuse of power Ė secretly using the intelligence community for political purposes and then using the intelligence community for cover when it became public.

It was a difficult time for the nation, and certainly for anyone in the White House. But it was necessary, especially in hindsight. It wasnít just about a president lying to the American people. It was a check on the seemingly unlimited power of the president to use the military and civilian career government bureaucracy for his own political goals.

It is now incumbent on the congressional leadership to act. There have been countless hearings into Benghazi by numerous congressional committees, but none have had subpoena power to demand the paper trail, or to force government workers to testify about what they knew and when they knew it.

The questions at the heart of the Benghazi scandal and cover-up are specifically:

1. Did the White House fail to provide adequate security at the Benghazi consulate because it didnít want to acknowledge that a terrorist threat remained, even though Bin Laden was dead?

2. Did the White House order the intelligence community to change its analysis so the president could claim his policy was a success, rather than a failure, just a few weeks before an election?

3. And, finally, what was the relationship between an overzealous White House staff and the president himself? What did the president know, and when did he know it?

This is no longer just a political issue. Itís not just a partisan witch hunt. It goes to the heart of what our system of government is all about. Thatís why itís time for Congress to act and create a bipartisan special committee to get to the bottom of this, once and for all.

It doesn't surprise me a bit. Most of this board spends its time inside the Red Team's field goal range, so from that angle, anyone standing between the 40's is going to seem deeply Blue by contrast. It's all about perception.

He's still not a moderate. I have yet to see him post anything he agrees on with today's right. In relation to small gov, low taxes or strict Constitutional construction he seems to most often take the opposite position.

Moderate is a pretty useless label anyway. They're supposed to be a mix of the two sides but no one knows what that mix is on a person to person basis. Then any moderate still has a slight lean. Since both parties are statist that still makes a moderate a statist. That's a better description or label, however you want to call it, that describes today's "moderate."

It doesn't surprise me a bit. Most of this board spends its time inside the Red Team's field goal range, so from that angle, anyone standing between the 40's is going to seem deeply Blue by contrast. It's all about perception.

Suzzer is FAR from being a moderate. He is AT BEST a moderate in Los Angeles... which means he is still solidly progressive left.

To be honest, I haven't been tracking his politics that closely, but this board does lean clearly right. I noticed long ago that anyone who's not part of that conservative ideology gets labelled a LWNJ and dogpiled pretty much on the regular, whether they're legitimately liberal or not.

To be honest, I haven't been tracking his politics that closely, but this board does lean clearly right. I noticed long ago that anyone who's not part of that conservative ideology gets labelled a LWNJ and dogpiled pretty much on the regular, whether they're legitimately liberal or not.

Suzzer is FAR from being a moderate. He is AT BEST a moderate in Los Angeles... which means he is still solidly progressive left.

Let's see what stances make me a screaming liberal on this board:

The US should have some form of UHC -- an idea at least supported in lip service by republicans until 2008.

For thinking Cliven Bundy is a racist freeloader nutjob - a stance also held by noted liberal Glenn Beck.

That the motivation behind Voter ID is to disenfranchise democratic voters, not stop fraud. Sorry but facts and logic are on my side on this one. Republicans have produced not one shred of evidence that in-person voter fraud happens on anything other than an extremely rare incidental basis. Nor have they gone after forms of voting like absentee voting, which do show fraud, because those tend to lean republican. And they've combined these voter ID laws with stuff like curtailing early voting and shutting down precincts in minority districts which they don't even try to justify have anything to do with reducing fraud. I guess calling out bullshit a relatively intelligent second grader can see through makes you a hippy dippy liberal on CP.

That when Paul Ryan says inner-city residents "lack a culture of work" and references a book by a guy who claims that blacks are intellectually inferior to whites - that's not going to sit well with the black community. A stance Ryan himself immediately walked back and apologized for. I guess that makes Ryan himself a screaming liberal to CP, who has no idea why he should even be apologizing.

For calling out Benghazi as politically-motivated Kabuki theater. Sorry but no one not buried in the conservative media bubble thinks Benghazi is anything more than a regrettable incident where possibly some mistakes were made - but nothing at the level of what republicans are trying to fabricate into.

IMO history will not judge any of these as particularly liberal stances. Time will tell I guess. But of course then you'll just blame the liberal media for writing history. Because it can never be that the right is wrong on anything, ever, no matter how many national elections they lose. It's always just the damn moocher class or liberal media.

At some point do any of you ever question that maybe it's not all of us? Maybe it's you? Maybe Californians and New Yorkers not all complete idiots or insane? Maybe blue states have figured out how to work with immigrant and minority population instead of making them the scapegoat for everything?

I know, crazy talk. Or maybe you just need to double down even harder on the guns, gods, country and divisive rhetoric.

The US should have some form of UHC -- an idea at least supported in lip service by republicans until 2008.

For thinking Cliven Bundy is a racist freeloader nutjob - a stance also held by noted liberal Glenn Beck.

That the motivation behind Voter ID is to disenfranchise democratic voters, not stop fraud. Sorry but facts and logic are on my side on this one. Republicans have produced not one shred of evidence that in-person voter fraud happens on anything other than an extremely rare incidental basis. Nor have they gone after forms of voting like absentee voting, which do show fraud, because those tend to lean republican. And they've combined these voter ID laws with stuff like curtailing early voting and shutting down precincts in minority districts which they don't even try to justify have anything to do with reducing fraud. I guess calling out bullshit a relatively intelligent second grader can see through makes you a hippy dippy liberal on CP.

That when Paul Ryan says inner-city residents "lack a culture of work" and references a book by a guy who claims that blacks are intellectually inferior to whites - that's not going to sit well with the black community. A stance Ryan himself immediately walked back and apologized for. I guess that makes Ryan himself a screaming liberal to CP, who has no idea why he should even be apologizing.

For calling out Benghazi as politically-motivated Kabuki theater. Sorry but no one not buried in the conservative media bubble thinks Benghazi is anything more than a regrettable incident where possibly some mistakes were made - but nothing at the level of what republicans are trying to fabricate into.

IMO history will not judge any of these as particularly liberal stances. Time will tell I guess. But of course then you'll just blame the liberal media for writing history. Because it can never be that the right is wrong on anything, ever, no matter how many national elections they lose. It's always just the damn moocher class or liberal media.

At some point do any of you ever question that maybe it's not all of us? Maybe it's you? Maybe Californians and New Yorkers not all complete idiots or insane? Maybe blue states have figured out how to work with immigrant and minority population instead of making them the scapegoat for everything?

I know, crazy talk. Or maybe you just need to double down even harder on the guns, gods, country and divisive rhetoric.

I'm a liberal.
Regardless of whether or not republicans were for it before it became politically better to be against it, UHC is a liberal stance.

__________________
"And I don't wish that girl any bad luck," he said, "but I hope she gets hit with a car."
- Tommy Lasorda